A jury has decided that a set of rare gold coins found in a bank deposit box rightfully belongs to the U.S. government. The decision, made on Wednesday, caps an unusual civil case that combined history, coin collecting and whether the set of rare $20 "double eagles" should have ever let the U.S. Mint in 1933.

Federal prosecutors had asserted that the coins never circulated when the country went off the gold standard. Most of the batch was instead melted down. But Joan Langbord, the daughter of a Philadelphia jeweler, said she found the 10 coins in her father's bank deposit bank after he died. She said that her father could have acquired them legally, perhaps through a trade of gold scrap.

Here's a big idea: Writing your name in the sand so large that it can be seen from space. Of course, you're much better position to carry off this sort of vanity project if you're Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Ahyan, a super-rich Arab sheikh who is the president of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. He also happens to own an island--an ideal canvas for what is essentially the world's largest self-referential graffiti tag.

The letters were crafted by a crew who worked for weeks to create them. The inscription measures half a mile high and two miles long--and the letters are dug so deep that they form waterways. The writing won't be immediately washed away, but even Hamad--whose fortune is only surpassed by his monarchial rival in the region, Saudi King Abdullah--can only defy the elements for so long.Hamad, according to Forbes, is a guy who lives large. A member of the Abu Dhabi ruling family, the man known as the Rainbow Sheikh owns 200 cars that are stored in a giant pyramid.

Americans give God a 52 percent job performance approval rating with only a 9 percent disapproval rating, according to a Public Policy Polling poll released last week.

"It turns out, if God exists, voters would give God a strong 52-9 approval rating," wrote a blogger for the polling group in a post about the results. "This is hardly a surprise considering the vast majority of the country believes in an infallible deity, but some of the crosstabs are quite interesting."

TAVARES, Fla. (AP) - Authorities say an inmate at a central Florida jail used a glitch in the facility's phone system to bond himself out.

The Lake County Sheriff's Office says 32-year-old Larry Stone discovered the glitch earlier this month. The phone system charges inmate accounts for calls but refunds the money if the call doesn't go through. But the system was reimbursing inmates twice for incomplete calls.

Authorities say Stone repeatedly made calls and hung up until he had more than $1,250 - enough to bond out of jail. Stone had been arrested in April on property-crime charges.

Stone was only free for a few hours before he was re-arrested. Officials became suspicious when other inmates tried copying the trick.

The software error has been fixed and accounts restored to their previous totals.

Here's something to keep in mind as you follow this evening's congressional debate over the debt ceiling. According to the latest daily statement from the U.S. Treasury, the government had an operating cash balance of $73.8 billion at the end of the day yesterday. Apple's last earnings report (PDF here) showed that the company had $76.2 billion in cash and marketable securities at the end of June. In other words, the world's largest tech company has more cash than the world's largest sovereign government. That's because Apple collects more money than it spends, while the U.S. government does not.

Here's something to keep in mind as you follow this evening's congressional debate over the debt ceiling. According to the latest daily statement from the U.S. Treasury, the government had an operating cash balance of $73.8 billion at the end of the day yesterday. Apple's last earnings report (PDF here) showed that the company had $76.2 billion in cash and marketable securities at the end of June. In other words, the world's largest tech company has more cash than the world's largest sovereign government. That's because Apple collects more money than it spends, while the U.S. government does not.

Here's something to keep in mind as you follow this evening's congressional debate over the debt ceiling. According to the latest daily statement from the U.S. Treasury, the government had an operating cash balance of $73.8 billion at the end of the day yesterday. Apple's last earnings report (PDF here) showed that the company had $76.2 billion in cash and marketable securities at the end of June. In other words, the world's largest tech company has more cash than the world's largest sovereign government. That's because Apple collects more money than it spends, while the U.S. government does not.

The new [Missouri] law bans direct social networking contact between teachers and students in the hopes of setting more distinct boundaries on the relationships between the two. Section 162.069 of the bill explains the social networking part in a bit more detail:

Teachers cannot establish, maintain, or use a work-related website unless it is available to school administrators and the child’s legal custodian, physical custodian, or legal guardian. Teachers also cannot have a nonwork-related website that allows exclusive access with a current or former student.

This implies that teachers will still be able to have a Facebook Page for interacting with students on a slightly more personal level, as long it’s still work-related. It’s the actual friending, messaging, and whatever other direct connection you can make on a social network that will not be allowed.